Is this the beginning of the end of AAP in Punjab?

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) does seem to have a Punjab problem. Despite a spectacular victory in the assembly election—bagging 92 of 117 seats—the government has been unstable, periodically rocked by controversies and scandals. Even as Punjab’s chief minister Bhagwant Mann puts up a brave face, the loss of AAP in the assembly election in Delhi earlier this month puts the party’s future in Punjab under a cloud.

Soon after the electoral debacle in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal summoned all AAP MLAs to Kapurthala House Delhi for a meeting on 11 February. The meeting, which some reports claimed lasted only 15 minutes, was expected to take stock of the party’s upcoming challenges in Punjab. Instead it turned into a thanksgiving party, with Kejriwal congratulating the MLAs for their hard work in the Delhi election.

This was followed by Manish Sisodia, a close aide of Kejriwal and former education minister in Delhi, going on a three-day visit to Mohali, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran. (Like Kejriwal, Sisodia had lost the election in his constituency in Delhi.) Accompanied by the state’s education minister, Sisodia visited government schools, inspected ‘schools of eminence’ set up on AAP’s ‘Delhi model’, addressed teachers and advised officials. Newspapers reported education department officials saying they had no information about Sisodia’s visits. Busy conducting exams, they were apparently not even present to brief him. A teachers’ association, however, cried foul over what it called interference.

The national party is hoping to consolidate its position in the only state it now governs. (three of its 13 MPs in the Lok Sabha are from Punjab.) Rallying its defeated, demoralised and temporarily unemployed band of AAP followers is a task that cannot be put off. 

The relationship between the Delhi-based AAP leadership and their Punjab counterparts has always been uneasy. Arvind Kejriwal’s authoritarian approach to governing Punjab from Delhi meant state ministers and officials took orders from the national capital.

Key decision-making in the Punjab government, the party and even the Chief Minister’s office was largely in the hands of Delhi-based figures like Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Bibhav Kumar.

This colonial-style governance also led to Punjab’s resources and manpower getting diverted for AAP’s electoral campaigns in far-flung states like Goa and Gujarat, in addition to Delhi and Haryana. The use of Punjab’s already strained resources to provide Z-plus security and chartered planes for Delhi-based leaders also fuelled resentment in the state.

The Punjab government’s advertising and publicity blitzkrieg in Gujarat and Goa—and even in the southern states—was blatantly designed to promote Kejriwal’s national ambitions and that did not go down well at all in the state.

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Delhi’s interference undermined the authority of chief minister Bhagwant Mann. A former comedian and charismatic orator with an earthy touch, he was one of the major factors for AAP’s electoral success in Punjab. Because of his immense popularity, Kejriwal had to reluctantly declare him a chief ministerial candidate for the 2022 elections. Despite being installed as the chief minister, Mann has had to play second fiddle to Kejriwal.

Mann briefly asserted himself when Kejriwal went to jail for the Delhi liquor scam but was quickly cut down to size once Kejriwal was released on bail.

With AAP’s less than impressive performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Mann was replaced as state AAP president by his bête noire Aman Arora. His office staff was purged and replaced by Kejriwal’s handpicked team, headed by the latter’s controversial personal assistant Bibhav Kumar. (Readers will recall that Kumar was accused by AAP’s one-time favourite Swati Maliwal—now a rebellious Rajya Sabha MP—of assaulting her at Kejriwal’s official residence in Delhi.)

With AAP defeated in Delhi and Kejriwal’s moral authority eroded, it will be interesting to see how the Kejriwal-Mann dynamics play out. In theory, Mann’s position may appear stronger after the debacle in Delhi—AAP’s Delhi leaders can no longer take him for granted. In practice, though, Bhagwant Mann’s weaknesses—his inaccessibility, his failure to stand by his own followers, his perceived lack of ‘team ethics’—may actually lead to more meddling by Delhi in Punjab.

The optics don’t bode well. Kejriwal has been telling Punjab MLAs in Delhi to approach him directly if their ‘work’ isn’t getting done, challenging Bhagwant Mann’s authority and signalling that he continues to be the supreme leader of AAP. Manish Sisodia’s ‘school inspection tour’ drew flak. In what capacity was he doing this, wondered state Congress chief Raja Warring.

The visit also fuelled speculation that Kejriwal is keen to get elected to the state assembly and become the chief minister of Punjab himself. Mann has been quick to debunk the ‘rumour’.

If AAP has its sights on sweeping the election in 2027, it will have to set its house in order, and soon. That will be an uphill task in Punjab, where AAP’s (mis)governance has been marked by rising crime, drug abuse and illegal sand mining, eroding its long-forgotten conceit of being the ‘party with a difference’.

Key voter groups—women, farmers, Dalits and government employees—are utterly disillusioned. Financial mismanagement, soaring state debt and wasteful spending have damaged its ‘Aam Aadmi’ image—possibly beyond repair. Corruption remains unchecked, and AAP’s focus on publicity has earned it the sobriquet of ‘advertisement sarkar’.

AAP’s authoritarian streak is evident in its crackdown on the slightest hint of opposition from within, the suppression of media and the manifestation of large-scale irregularities in panchayat and municipal corporation elections. All this has really weakened its democratic credentials and was manifest in the last Lok Sabha elections. AAP was able to win only three of the 14 seats in the state and saw its vote share plummet from 43 per cent to 26 per cent.

AAP is at a crossroads. No longer does the narrative of a band of apolitical, kattar imandar (totally honest) professionals out to provide good governance and a different vision of politics hold up. What stands out are its flaws—exacerbated by disorganisation and opportunism. Whether it will reinvent itself, regroup and rise again like a phoenix or dwindle into oblivion like the AGP (Asom Gana Parishad) in Assam is anybody’s guess.